In this research communication we evaluate the impact of the addition of prebiotic components (inulin, polydextrose, and modified starch, 40 g/l) as fat substitutes on the physicochemical characteristics, probiotic survival, and sensory acceptance of probiotic (Lacticaseibacillus casei 01, 108 CFU/ml) Greek yogurts during storage (7 °C, 28 d). All formulations had probiotic counts higher than 107 CFU/ml during storage and simulated gastrointestinal conditions (SGIC). The prebiotic components increased the probiotic survival to the enteric phase of the SGIC, with inulin producing the most pronounced effect. Inulin addition resulted in products with lower pH values and consistency and higher titratable acidity during storage, with negative impact on the sensory acceptance (flavor, texture, and overall impression) at the end of the storage period. Modified starch addition impacted negatively on the acceptance of the products (appearance, flavor, texture, and overall impression). Polydextrose addition resulted in products with lower consistency, but similar sensory acceptance to the full-fat yogurt. It can be concluded that it is possible to prepare potentially synbiotic Greek yogurts by desorption technique using L. casei as probiotic culture and inulin, polydextrose or modified starch as prebiotic components, with the utilization of polydextrose being advisable.

The San Pedro de Atacama oases, located in northern Chile’s hyperarid Atacama Desert, have been occupied for at least 3000 years. Here, we examine cemetery use in the oases, with emphasis on the Middle Period (ca. AD 400–1000). By modeling of a large corpus (n=243) of radiocarbon dates, over 90% of which are direct AMS assays of human bone collagen, we attempt to establish a temporal framework by which to explore the establishment of formalized social inequality in this period. Modeling of these dates at three locally defined scales (all ayllus, inter-ayllu, and intra-ayllu) permit heretofore unavailable insights into the chronological and spatial dimensions of life and mortuary activity in the oases and allow us to better contextualize patterns of social inequality during the dynamic Middle Period. The results of this modeling indicate two distinct peaks of occupation during the Middle Period in San Pedro and document significant temporal variability in cemetery use patterns on both inter- and intra-ayllu scales. These results stress the importance of local social and environmental factors to the occupation of the oases and provide crucial chronological structure for future archaeological and bioarchaeological research in the region.

Porungo is a traditional pasta filata cheese produced using raw milk throughout the southwest region of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The objectives of this Research Communication were to evaluate the quality of raw milk used to make Porungo cheese, to characterize its production process, and to determine its chemical composition. The results showed that the raw milk met both Brazilian and international quality requirements. Chemically, Porungo can be classified as a medium to full fat semi-hard fresh cheese. Our study has allowed the first standards and regulations for Porungo to be established in Brazil. By virtue of this, the local producers are able to formalize their activity while consumers can have access to a safe and certified product.

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of spatially evolving turbulent planar jets of viscoelastic fluids described by the FENE-P model, such as those consisting of a Newtonian fluid solvent carrying long chain polymer molecules, are carried out in order to develop a theory for the far field of turbulent jets of viscoelastic fluids. New evolution relations for the jet shear-layer thickness $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(x)$ , centreline velocity $U_{c}(x)$ and maximum polymer stresses $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{c}^{[p]}(x)$ are derived and validated by the new DNS data, yielding $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(x)\sim x$ , $U_{c}(x)\sim x^{-1/2}$ , and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}_{c}^{[p]}(x)\sim x^{-5/2}$ , respectively, where $x$ is the coordinate in the streamwise direction. It is shown that, compared with a classical (Newtonian) turbulent jet, the effect of the polymers is to reduce the spreading rate, centreline velocity decay, Reynolds stresses and viscous dissipation rate. The self-preserving character of the flow is analysed and it is shown that profiles of mean velocity, Reynolds stresses and polymer stresses are self-similar provided the proper scales are used in the normalisation of these quantities. A fundamental difference from the Newtonian jet in this regard is the necessity for two, instead of only one, different velocity and length scales to properly characterise the evolution of the turbulent flow. These extra velocity and length scales are directly related to a time scale associated with the characteristic fading memory property of viscoelastic fluids.

Computing predictions of future sea level that include well-defined uncertainty bounds requires models that are capable of robustly simulating the evolution of ice sheets and glaciers. Ice flow behaviour is known to be sensitive to the location and geometry of dynamic ice boundaries such as the grounding line (GRL), terminus position and ice surface elevation, so that any such model should track these interfaces with a high degree of accuracy. To address this challenge, we implement a numerical approach that uses the level-set method (LSM) that accurately models the evolution of the ice–air and ice–water interface as well as capturing topological changes in ice-sheet geometry. This approach is evaluated by comparing simulations of grounded and marine-terminating ice sheets to various analytical and numerical benchmark solutions. A particular advantage of the LSM is its ability to explicitly track the moving margin and GRL while using a fixed grid finite-difference scheme. Our results demonstrate that the LSM is an accurate and robust approach for tracking the ice surface interface and terminus for advancing and retreating ice sheets, including the transient marine ice-sheet interface and GRL positions.

This research communication addresses the impact of the addition of Lactobacillus casei and/or carbonation (CO2) on the chemical composition, physicochemical characteristics, probiotic survival, and sensory acceptance of passion-fruit flavored whey dairy beverages (70% milk/30% whey) during storage (30 d/4°C). The addition of Lactobacillus casei and/or carbonation did not impact on the chemical composition, pH values, and acceptance (flavor and overall impression) of the products, but increased the acidity, and decreased the aroma acceptance. The carbonation process did not affect the probiotic survival but decreased the acidity of the products during storage. It can be concluded that it is possible to develop a probiotic passion-fruit flavored carbonated whey dairy beverage with suitable chemical composition, acidity, sensory acceptance (>6 in 9-point hedonic scale) and probiotic viability (>7 log cfu/ml) that could be refrigerated stored for 30 d. This is the first report considering a probiotic non-fermented carbonated whey dairy beverage.

It is almost consensual, the development of both anxiety and depression, among women diagnosed with breast cancer. Sometimes symptoms remain restricted to the time of diagnosis, but quite often they persist, and even increase after that. However, this same feature, among women with benign tumors, has not yet been well established.

Authors’ aim is to characterize the population of women attending a Breast Disease Diagnosis Unit, including: socio-demographic features, clinical conditions and screening for anxiety and depression. They also pretend to check out differences between the ones with benign and the others with malign disease.

For this purpose they evaluated 150 women, attending Breast Disease Diagnosis Unit of St. John Hospital (Oporto). All of them were first evaluated by a Psychologist, at the time of the histological diagnostic biopsy, and fulfilled a clinical specific protocol, as well as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS). Patients scoring for borderline (8-10) or pathological levels (» 11) were then reevaluated, after a three month period. Preliminary data shows that a high percentage of women with pathological levels of anxiety and depression symptoms (40%) were diagnosed with benign breast tumor.

First conclusion is about the need for a more attentive clinical behavior, also towards women with benign breast tumors. In fact it seems that they also have a high risk of developing both anxiety and depression.

This is an ongoing study, and the aim is to increase sample size and to better analyze and justify all possible variable correlations.

Multi-Robot System (MRS) is composed of a group of robots that work cooperatively. However, Multi-Agent System (MAS) is computational systems consisting of a group of agents that interact with each other to solve a problem. The central difference between MRS and MAS is that in the first case, the agent is a robot, and in the second, it is a software. Analyzing the scientific literature, it is possible to notice that few studies address the integration between MAS and MRS. In order to achieve the interdisciplinary integration, the theoretical background of these areas must be considered in this paper, so that the integration can be applied using a case study of decentralized MRS. The objective of this MRS is to track and surround a stationary target. Also, it has been implemented and validated in the robot simulator called Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform (V-REP). In the validation of the proposed MRS, a scenario with three robots and a stationary target were defined. In the tracking task, the robot can detect the target whose position is not known a priori. When the detection occurs, the V-REP informs the target position to the robot because the environment is discretized into a grid of rectangular cells. After that, all the robots are directed to the target, and the surround task is realized. In this task, a mathematical model with direct communication between the robots was used to keep the robots equidistant therefrom and from each other.

HyLL (Hybrid Linear Logic) is an extension of intuitionistic linear logic (ILL) that has been used as a framework for specifying systems that exhibit certain modalities. In HyLL, truth judgements are labelled by worlds (having a monoidal structure) and hybrid connectives (at and ↓) relate worlds with formulas. We start this work by showing that HyLL's axioms and rules can be adequately encoded in linear logic (LL), so that one focused step in LL will correspond to a step of derivation in HyLL. This shows that any proof in HyLL can be exactly mimicked by a LL focused derivation. Another extension of LL that has extensively been used for specifying systems with modalities is Subexponential Linear Logic (SELL). In SELL, the LL exponentials (!, ?) are decorated with labels representing locations, and a pre-order on such labels defines the provability relation. We propose an encoding of HyLL into SELL⋒ (SELL plus quantification over locations) that gives better insights about the meaning of worlds in HyLL. More precisely, we identify worlds as locations, and show that a flat subexponential structure is sufficient for representing any world structure in HyLL. This shows that HyLL's monoidal structure is not reflected in LL derivations, hence not increasing the expressiveness of LL, from a proof theoretical point of view. We conclude by proposing the notion of fixed points in multiplicative additive HyLL (μHyMALL), which can be encoded into multiplicative additive linear logic with fixed points (μMALL). As an application, we propose encodings of Computational Tree Logic (CTL) into both μMALL and μHyMALL. In the former, states are represented as atoms in the linear context, hence reflecting a more operational view of CTL connectives. In the latter, worlds represent states of the transition system, thus exhibiting a pleasant similarity with the semantics of CTL.

Pullback attractors with forwards unbounded behaviour are to be found in the literature, but not much is known about pullback attractors with each and every section being unbounded. In this paper, we introduce the concept of unbounded pullback attractor, for which the sections are not required to be compact. These objects are addressed in this paper in the context of a class of non-autonomous semilinear parabolic equations. The nonlinearities are assumed to be non-dissipative and, in addition, defined in such a way that the equation possesses unbounded solutions as the initial time goes to -∞, for each elapsed time. Distinct regimes for the non-autonomous term are taken into account. Namely, we address the small non-autonomous perturbation and the asymptotically autonomous cases.

Significant progress in nanoscience was achieved through the development of methods and instruments to better comprehend nanoscale properties. We present here a methodology and automated setup to measure layer-by-layer films capacitance in the air immediately after polyelectrolytes adsorption. It presents high accuracy (~0.01 pF) to check the capacitance stabilization during spontaneous drying process in the air, with sensitivity to show electrical signal alternation accordingly to the outermost polyelectrolyte layer. Besides, a linear trend in capacitance was observed similar to UV–vis measurements. This method allows analyzing films electrical properties, affording better choice of materials, thickness, and molecular architecture.